And of course the inevitable... What happens when a less expensive product is introduced into the market with similar or superior attributes? Margin Compression! We analyzed three big Wall Street banks, starting with the "Riskiest Bank on the Street" (time permitting, reference our hard hitting, prescient research from early 2008).

You will get to touch, play with and trade value via UltraCoin. Below is a screenshot of UltraCoin running on a Mac. I will also be taking applications for large scale beta testers and entities who wish to have customized value trading solutions created for them.

"Dominic Wilson and Jose Ursua of the firm's markets research division are first up. They argue that Bitcoin fails to meet both basic criteria of a viable currency: while there remains an outside chance for widespread acceptance as a medium of exchange, as a stable source of value, it has so far failed. That undermines the premise that Bitcoin could serve as a way of short-circuiting exchange rates in inflation-prone countries."

But wait a minute! Goldman's business business is growing at a fraction of this pace, and actually negative in some areas. So, if Bitcoin as a currency and payment system is a failure, what the hell is Goldmam? Of course, Business Insider goes on to report...

For most users what matters is not the comparison with other currencies, but a comparison with the volatility of the currency that they hold (dollars in the US for instance) in terms of the things that they need to buy. The volatility of consumer prices (in dollars) has been even lower than FX rates, even if measured over a period including the 1970s. Put simply, if you hold cash today in most developed countries, you know within a few percentage points what you will be able to buy with it a day, a week or a year from now.

This is Bullshit! Say it to the more mathematically challenged, my bonus hungry friends. Let's run the math using theusinflationcalculator.com:

Dollar as a store of value

As you can see, if you measure things from the '70s as the esteemed, erstwhile Wall Street aficiaondo from Goldman recommended, then you would have less than 17% of your buying power left. Yes, bitcoin is volatile, but its volatility stems from the price going up and down, while the USD has primarily just went down. You know that saying about the frog in the slowly heated boiling pot of water, right?

In addition, both of the largest Bitcoin payment processors absorb the exchange rate volatility for their customers, or did the best of breed Goldman analysts somehow overlook this pertinent fact?

Wilson and Ursua include this graph showing volatility of Bitcoin versus the Argentine peso, the yen, the euro, the pound, and U.S. inflation. It's not even close.

bitcoin volaitlity

But wait a minute! If the largest payment processors absorb the volatility and market risk of their customers, then Goldman must assuredly be referring to the currencies above from an investment perspective, no?

Yes! Bitcoin is truly volatile, indeed, but the guy at Goldman are cheating, hoping that the rest of us don't know our finance and/or basic common sense. You see, they are looking at just one side of the equation - the side that favors fiat currencies and disfavors bitcoin. You see, risk is the price of reward. For every reward you seek, you pay a price in risk. The goal, as a smart investor, is to pay little risk for much reward. Goldman is trying to make it appear as if you are paying nothing but risk for bitcoin and getting little reward in return. Let's see how that pans out when someone who knows what they're doing chimes in. From the BoomBustBlogresearch report Digital Currencies' Risks, Rewards & Returns - An Into Into Bitcoin Investing For Longer Term Horizons:

GS return on equity has declined substantially due to deleverage and is only marginally higher than its current cost of capital. With ROE down to c12% from c20% during pre-crisis levels, there is no way a stock with high beta as GS could justify adequate returns to cover the inherent risk. For GS to trade back at 200 it has to increase its leverage back to pre-crisis levels to assume ROE of 20%. And for that GS has to either increase its leverage back to 25x. With curbs on banks leverage this seems highly unlikely. Without any increase in leverage and ROE, the stock would only marginally cover returns to shareholders given that ROE is c12%. Even based on consensus estimates the stock should trade at about where it is trading right now, leaving no upside potential. Using BoomBustBlog estimates, the valuation drops considerably since we take into consideration a decrease in trading revenue or an increase in the cost of funding in combination with a limitation of leverage due to the impending global regulation coming down the pike.

gs_roe.jpg

Now that we see how hard it is to truly produce Alpha, I query thee... What do you think would happen if a financial maverick, an out of the box thinker who's different from all of those other guys, got a seed round of funding for the most disruptive product to hit the finance world since the printing press? What if that seed round was for $8 million dollars, with a preferred A series coming right behind it? What would such a cash flush company do, being one of the most cash flush Bitcoin companies in the world? Hmmmnnn!!!

Speakin' of Goldman Sachs...

I anticipate being in the market very soon for (I'm not thier yet, but hopefully very soon):

CTO - Chief Technology Officer

COO - Chief Opertating Officer

General Counsel

CMO - Chief Marketing Officer

CFO - Chief Financial Officer

As well as skilled Java and Blockchain developers.

Hit me via reggie at ultra-coin.com if you have an interest in coming on board.

About two weeks ago I answered what was at the time one of the most amateurish reports coming out of the bit money center banks in some time in Theres' Something Fishy In The House Of Morgan, Pt. 2: Bitcoin Fear, Envy & Loathing. Well, it appears that there's a contest for the hypocritical hypothesis and Citibank intends to go for the gold, likely toppling JP Morgan's lead. In a nutshell, we have a gaggle of US based banks that have exhibited horrendous risk management, business judgement and trading/investment acumen nearly topple the global financial system, demand (as in ransom money) trillions of dollars of welfare (which they recieved and are still recieving) from the US taxpayer, and still pay out billions of dollars in bonuses and salaried compensation - all the while the US dollar is still safe and sound as the worlds deepest, most liquid currency market not to mention still being the world's reserve currency.

Now, a much, much, much smaller Bitcoin exchange fails after flashing obvious warning signs for months and does not require bailing out by the tax payer or the Federal Reserve (how can I emphasize how big a plus this is for Bitcoin), and bitcoin dips in price for a single evening - rebounding nigh immediately! Citibank and JP Morgan's incompetence through the entire world into a near depression - and that's with globally collaborative ZIRP, trillion's of dollars of bailouts and the clandestive changing of accounting rules and the morphing if simple math to make it look like the insolvent were really not so.

Re: Mt. Gox failure - Would Mt. Gox still be in business today, like JPM and Citi if the Federal Reserve dropped rates to a negative level, FASB authorized the changing of accounting standards to minimize Gox's liabilities and no one at the exchange was held liable for what appeared to be outright fraud, as claimed by the SEC? would there be analysts in Mt. Gox writing silly papers overflowing with hypocritical hypothesis about how XYZ the dollar was dead because a US bank went bust? Probably!

I've worked hard to establish a strong reputation - not only in terms of competence but in terms of integrity. For those who don't know of me, you canview my media apearances and calls as well as my Wikipedia page. You see, my mommy and daddy raised me to appreciate both aspects of success - not only one. With that in mind I'd like to address the recent report from JP Morgan slamming Bitcoin. Just so most know my viewpoint, the typical Bitcoin enthusiast and entrepeneur is primarily technologist leaning, thus may or may not see all of the aspects of the financial side of this new... "thing". In addition, and because of that, the financial guys often get away with some outrageous bullshit that they'd never even try under different circumstances. Let's apply this perspective to JPM's latest FX strategic outlook report, "The Audacity of Bitcoin". I will refute this report, point by point, and in the process make the managing director whose name is on the report look downright ignorant and uneducated. This is not a personal attack or an attempt at sleight (hey, he may be a downright stand-up guy), I am simply calling it as I see it.

Before we get to the report though, I want to address the foolishness of following these "reports" from the big name brand money center banks.

Mainstream media entities such as the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider take the conflicted interest ridden drivel from these investment banks as actual legitimate analysis and actually base their reporting on it. That really gives me pause! Now on to addressing what Citibank claims as espoused through Business Insider, and I quote:

In a new note, Citi currency strategist — and the bank's defacto Bitcoin analyst — Steven Englander basically asks: What's the point of Bitcoin now?

But for Englander, the technical glitch that hit not only Gox but other exchanges "seems to have been known for years without the Bitcoin developers instituting a complete fix,"... "So one question is whether the decentralized structure, which is the attraction to many, makes it too cumbersome to enact essential fixes."

"Bitcoin transactions [were] thought to be impregnable and turned out not to be," said Englander. "Earlier security questions had centered around everything except the possibility that there might be a fraudulent transactions record. The imperviousness to fraud was one the big attractions of Bitcoin and the surprise exploitation of a known defect is a setback. Now it looks like just another payments system that has to worry about fraud."

Where am I to start with this? Long story short, this is plain old simple ignorance! Bitcoin is open source software. That is why you get it for free! It's not as if the core Bitcoin development team ran a company and Mt. Gox bought a commercial software package from them with a warranty and represenations. Mt. Gox relied on an open sourced code base and refused to both contribute back to the community and even keep abreast of what was going on in the community. The end result? A problem that was recognized and solved 3 years ago went unseen by Mt. Gox until they were bled of hundreds of million of dollars worth of bitcoin. JPM acts as if it is the open source communty's responsibility to instruct Mt. Gox on how to write and maintain software when in actuality it was Mt. Gox's responsibility to give back to and monitor the open source community!!! Notice how entities that were paying attention and playing by the open source communities rules were unscathed by this so-called "defect". If I say there is a hole in the ground and I send out a report that there is a hole in the ground, but you don't read that report and continue to walk until you fall into the hole - all the while knowing you gained access to the ground for free, are you going to blame the ground for being imperfect or yourself for ignoring the community that gave you free access when the warned you about the hole and even gave you instructions on how to avoid the hole?

"Bitcoin's market cap on paper by far exceeds that of the competition and that are many Bitcoin holders heavily invested in Bitcoin, so it has a first mover advantage. However as a store of value, its only value is reputational, and recent developments have shaken that reputation."

Go to 1:25 in this video for an answer to the statement above...

Business insider goes on to warn of the following risk: "That big banks themselves co-opt the still-relevant technological developments embedded in Bitcoin and junk all the bad parts". Actually, the banks will implement bad parts and junk all the good parts. You see, this is all relative. In general, what's good for you and me is generally bad for the banks, and vice versa. Why do Citibank and JP Morgan harp on the pitfalls of decentralization? It's because the banks are the guys with the centralized servers!!! If you eliminate the need for centralized servers you eliminate the need for banks!

Why harp on the dangers of peer to peer? Because bank branches will disappear in a heartbeat, as will centralized exchanges and the ability to pack in massive fees and charges unbenknownst to the client, the same fees and charges that fund those oh so many decimillionaire annual bonuses. It means a paycut for Wall Street and Wall Street is known to be vociferous in its attempts to avoid paycuts.

About two weeks ago I answered what was at the time one of the most amateurish reports coming out of the bit money center banks in some time in Theres' Something Fishy In The House Of Morgan, Pt. 2: Bitcoin Fear, Envy & Loathing. Well, it appears that there's a contest for the hypocritical hypothesis and Citibank intends to go for the gold, likely toppling JP Morgan's lead. In a nutshell, we have a gaggle of US based banks that have exhibited horrendous risk management, business judgement and trading/investment acumen nearly topple the global financial system, demand (as in ransom money) trillions of dollars of welfare (which they recieved and are still recieving) from the US taxpayer, and still pay out billions of dollars in bonuses and salaried compensation - all the while the US dollar is still safe and sound as the worlds deepest, most liquid currency market not to mention still being the world's reserve currency.

Now, a much, much, much smaller Bitcoin exchange fails after flashing obvious warning signs for months and does not require bailing out by the tax payer or the Federal Reserve (how can I emphasize how big a plus this is for Bitcoin), and bitcoin dips in price for a single evening - rebounding nigh immediately! Citibank and JP Morgan's incompetence through the entire world into a near depression - and that's with globally collaborative ZIRP, trillion's of dollars of bailouts and the clandestive changing of accounting rules and the morphing if simple math to make it look like the insolvent were really not so.

Re: Mt. Gox failure - Would Mt. Gox still be in business today, like JPM and Citi if the Federal Reserve dropped rates to a negative level, FASB authorized the changing of accounting standards to minimize Gox's liabilities and no one at the exchange was held liable for what appeared to be outright fraud, as claimed by the SEC? would there be analysts in Mt. Gox writing silly papers overflowing with hypocritical hypothesis about how XYZ the dollar was dead because a US bank went bust? Probably!

I've worked hard to establish a strong reputation - not only in terms of competence but in terms of integrity. For those who don't know of me, you canview my media apearances and calls as well as my Wikipedia page. You see, my mommy and daddy raised me to appreciate both aspects of success - not only one. With that in mind I'd like to address the recent report from JP Morgan slamming Bitcoin. Just so most know my viewpoint, the typical Bitcoin enthusiast and entrepeneur is primarily technologist leaning, thus may or may not see all of the aspects of the financial side of this new... "thing". In addition, and because of that, the financial guys often get away with some outrageous bullshit that they'd never even try under different circumstances. Let's apply this perspective to JPM's latest FX strategic outlook report, "The Audacity of Bitcoin". I will refute this report, point by point, and in the process make the managing director whose name is on the report look downright ignorant and uneducated. This is not a personal attack or an attempt at sleight (hey, he may be a downright stand-up guy), I am simply calling it as I see it.

Before we get to the report though, I want to address the foolishness of following these "reports" from the big name brand money center banks.

Mainstream media entities such as the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider take the conflicted interest ridden drivel from these investment banks as actual legitimate analysis and actually base their reporting on it. That really gives me pause! Now on to addressing what Citibank claims as espoused through Business Insider, and I quote:

In a new note, Citi currency strategist — and the bank's defacto Bitcoin analyst — Steven Englander basically asks: What's the point of Bitcoin now?

But for Englander, the technical glitch that hit not only Gox but other exchanges "seems to have been known for years without the Bitcoin developers instituting a complete fix,"... "So one question is whether the decentralized structure, which is the attraction to many, makes it too cumbersome to enact essential fixes."

"Bitcoin transactions [were] thought to be impregnable and turned out not to be," said Englander. "Earlier security questions had centered around everything except the possibility that there might be a fraudulent transactions record. The imperviousness to fraud was one the big attractions of Bitcoin and the surprise exploitation of a known defect is a setback. Now it looks like just another payments system that has to worry about fraud."

Where am I to start with this? Long story short, this is plain old simple ignorance! Bitcoin is open source software. That is why you get it for free! It's not as if the core Bitcoin development team ran a company and Mt. Gox bought a commercial software package from them with a warranty and represenations. Mt. Gox relied on an open sourced code base and refused to both contribute back to the community and even keep abreast of what was going on in the community. The end result? A problem that was recognized and solved 3 years ago went unseen by Mt. Gox until they were bled of hundreds of million of dollars worth of bitcoin. JPM acts as if it is the open source communty's responsibility to instruct Mt. Gox on how to write and maintain software when in actuality it was Mt. Gox's responsibility to give back to and monitor the open source community!!! Notice how entities that were paying attention and playing by the open source communities rules were unscathed by this so-called "defect". If I say there is a hole in the ground and I send out a report that there is a hole in the ground, but you don't read that report and continue to walk until you fall into the hole - all the while knowing you gained access to the ground for free, are you going to blame the ground for being imperfect or yourself for ignoring the community that gave you free access when the warned you about the hole and even gave you instructions on how to avoid the hole?

"Bitcoin's market cap on paper by far exceeds that of the competition and that are many Bitcoin holders heavily invested in Bitcoin, so it has a first mover advantage. However as a store of value, its only value is reputational, and recent developments have shaken that reputation."

Go to 1:25 in this video for an answer to the statement above...

Business insider goes on to warn of the following risk: "That big banks themselves co-opt the still-relevant technological developments embedded in Bitcoin and junk all the bad parts". Actually, the banks will implement bad parts and junk all the good parts. You see, this is all relative. In general, what's good for you and me is generally bad for the banks, and vice versa. Why do Citibank and JP Morgan harp on the pitfalls of decentralization? It's because the banks are the guys with the centralized servers!!! If you eliminate the need for centralized servers you eliminate the need for banks!

Why harp on the dangers of peer to peer? Because bank branches will disappear in a heartbeat, as will centralized exchanges and the ability to pack in massive fees and charges unbenknownst to the client, the same fees and charges that fund those oh so many decimillionaire annual bonuses. It means a paycut for Wall Street and Wall Street is known to be vociferous in its attempts to avoid paycuts.

Bloomberg reports Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s biggest government-owned lender, is on track for its largest pretax loss since 2008 after setting aside 3.1 billion pounds more ($5.1 billion) for legal and compensation claims. We will delve into this report in detail, but first a little background so we're all viewing 20/20.

I've been spending a lot of time rebuilding the banking system as software over a cryptocurrency framework. Basically, I'm building a more efficient, more "Trustworthy" financial system. Many are doubtful of these endeavors. I say, don't underestimate the effort. For one, a more efficient, more trustworthy system is sorely needed. Here we are, 7 years after the start of the great financial trainwreck that I'm known for predicting, and I'm still at it doing the same thing to the same industry. This is only possible when there's a structural problem in the industry. A problem that rapid advancements in technology are ripe to solve.

On Thursday, 11 April 2013 I penned, I Illustrate How The Irish Banking Cancer Spreads To The UK Taxpayer And Metastasizes Through US Markets! wherein I clearly illustrated that RBS is materially understating its liabilities AND even went so far as to include links to the SEC and the UK banking regulator so that US/UK taxpayers and investors can notify our erstwhile regulator(s) to the potential of financial shenanigans. The root of the problem is that RBS has materially under-reported its liabilities (in my oh so humble opinion.) Those that stress tested RBS (the same erstwhile professionals that allowed the Irish banks to pass their stress tests 3 months before they started collapsing) apparently overlooked humongous swaths of liabilities.

The amount of evidence that I produced to back my claims was prodigous...

What happened behind closed doors?

Ulster Bank gave a first floating charge in favor of the Central Bank of Ireland (an arm of the European Central Bank) and the Financial Services Authority of Ireland. U.S. investors would have had to rely on the contents of The Royal Bank of Scotland's 2008 Annual Accounts which apparently (in my opinion) concealed the existence of the CRO registered charges to the Bank of Ireland.

The provision includes 1.9 billion pounds for lawsuits and fines tied mostly to the sale of $91 billion of mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007, the lender said yesterday. It follows agreements Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and UBS AG (UBSN) struck with U.S. regulators to settle claims they didn’t provide adequate disclosure about mortgage-backed debt sold in the housing bubble that preceded the 2008 financial crisis.

Are they referring to claims similar to the ones I made that RBS bought Ulster Bank full of unrecognized mortgage crap, levered up off it and hid the debt? I strongly suggest my readers brush up on how The Irish Banking Cancer Spreads to the UK.

More than five years after giving RBS the biggest bank bailout in history, the government still hasn’t been able to cut its 80 percent stake.

... “When the crisis broke, the bank was involved in a number of different businesses in multiple countries that have subsequently faced heavy scrutiny by customers and regulators,” McEwan, 56, said in yesterday’s statement. “The scale of the bad decisions during that period means that some problems are still just emerging.”

... The charges led the bank to cut its forecast for its core Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength. RBS expects the ratio will be about 11 percent at the end of 2013, or as much as 8.5 percent under the latest rules set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. That’s down from the company’s estimate of 11.6 percent and 9.1 percent in November.

“Fronting up to our past mistakes is very expensive, but RBS is a much stronger bank that can deal with these costs on its own while running a good capital position,” McEwan said on the call. “Dealing with these litigation and conduct issues is essential if we are to move the bank forward.”

Well, I still haven't noticed them come clean on the Ulster Bank charge issue. If they really are going to "Front[ing] up... past mistakes" then they really need to address this, no? If the Ulster Bank charges are included in the Basel capitalization guidelines, then RBS needs a bailout, and needs one Now! It doesn't end their though. On Monday, 20 May 2013 I queried Who is RBS? Royal BS... or the Royal Bank of Scotland, to wit:

"An independent Scotland would have an exceptionally large banking sector compared to the size of its economy - with banking assets of more than 1250 percent of Scottish [gross domestic product] - making it more vulnerable to financial shocks and the volatility of the sector," the Treasury report said on Monday.

The report pointed out Scotland's banking exposure would dwarf that of Iceland and Cyprus, two countries that faced severe banking collapses in recent years. Iceland's banks, for example, had assets equivalent to 880 per cent of GDP, while Cyprus, which faced a banking crisis in March, had total banking assets of around 700 per cent of GDP.

"At the end of September 2012, the two largest banks – the Cyprus Popular Bank and Bank of Cyprus – had assets in the region of 210 per cent and 175 per cent of Cyprus's GDP respectively."

"It is worth noting that, if Scotland became independent, its banking sector would be similarly concentrated (with two large players, Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank of Scotland and a number of smaller firms), and that an independent Scotland's domestic banking sector would be likely to be significantly larger than that of Cyprus (assuming no change to firms' domicile arrangements)."

I penned, I Illustrate How The Irish Banking Cancer Spreads To The UK Taxpayer And Metastasizes Through US Markets! wherein I clearly illustrated that RBS is materially understating its liabilities AND even went so far as to include links to the SEC and the UK banking regulator so that US/UK taxpayers and investors can notify our erstwhile regulator(s) to the potential of financial shenanigans. The root of the problem is that RBS has materially under-reported its liabilities (in my oh so humble opinion.) Those that stress tested RBS (the same erstwhile professionals that allowed the Irish banks to pass their stress tests 3 months before they started collapsing) apparently overlooked humongous swaths of liabilities. The charge documents referred to in the aforelinked article are definitively not apparent in the recent bank stress testing’ conducted by the European Banking Authority, at least not in the summary results that the EBA have made available. For those who are still skeptical, I beg thee reference the RBS Stress Test download.

To think, there are actually many who query as to why I seek to make a more efficient financial system...

With the latest advances in technology, I can literally replace large swaths of bank functions with software. Software that doesn't lie, cheat, steal, or screw you for a bonus! Zero Trust software...

page-0page-1page-2page-3page-4page-5

If the RBS/Ulster Bank mortgage-backed secutities would have been traded through UltraCoin, rehyppthecation, double-spending, over-leverage, and thrice pledged assets would have been a thing of the past. These contracts are overollateralized (200%) and use no leverage, yet still hold the promise of significant return, not to mention a mere fraction of the cost of the big bank stuff. Will the dawn of this technology herald the end of fractional reserve banking as we know it?

Let it be known, Wall Street banks' profit margin IS my business model!!!

Initially, I was going to go the PC (as in politically correct) route and treat Mr. Munster with kids gloves, but we're all adults here and I want everyone to realize that this is not a form of character assassination, a personal or professional attack, libel, slander or even my just being rude. Gene Munster is a professional, and a seemingly intelligent one at that. It's just that he is wrong, dead wrong, and has been wrong for some time. Despite his extreme inaccuracies regarding Apple and its share price, he is the go to guy for the financial press and mainstream media, not to mention the Apple-centric blogosphere for all things Apple investment related - despite his being wrong as hell.

First reference this quick 3 minute video..

Now reference the following graphic illustrating a search on Mr. Munster's Apple price targets...

In a recession, not many people and businesses borrow, hence lending tends to be a poor business.

In order to make money off of lending assets you need a reasonable return.

When ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) is applied, said reasonable return does not exist unless banks dramatically mark up the cost of the loan which brings up back to point one.

In the states I made this point when most analysts insisted that ZIRP was good for the banks, to wit...

Now remember, I've been very bearish on the EU and thier banks and sovereign debt in particular, since Q! 2010 - way before most - reference Pan-European sovereign debt crisis. Yesterday morning if you were to Google the term EU recovery, you would see something like this in return...

The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low after a drop in inflation to the slowest pace in four years threatened its mission to keep prices stable.

Policy makers meeting in Frankfurt today reduced the main refinancing rate by a quarter point to 0.25 percent. The decision was predicted by three of 70 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The ECB kept its deposit rate at zero and trimmed the marginal lending rate to 0.75 percent. ECB President Mario Draghi will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m.

The ECB now has just one more quarter-point cut left before reaching zero, increasing the likelihood of unconventional tools such as quantitative easing or a negative deposit rate if prices slow further or the economic recovery stalls. Euro-area inflation is less than half the ECB’s target and unemployment is at the highest level since the currency bloc was formed in 1999.

“There comes a point where inflation is so weak, and coming in weaker than anticipated, that the case for loosening policy becomes too hard to resist,” said Richard Barwell, senior European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, who predicted the cut. “Bad unemployment numbers only make the case stronger.”

Does it seem like I've predicted the future hear once again as that Financial Nostradamus Dude???

Quantitative Easing

A Fed-style quantitative easing program has repeatedly been ruled out by ECB policy makers. The central bank is barred by European Union treaties from financing state debt, making large-scale purchases of government bonds open to a legal challenge.

While Draghi has floated the prospect of a negative deposit rate, the rate for commercial lenders who park excess cash at the central bank, policy makers have said that its effects can’t be adequately predicted. A negative deposit rate could hurt banks’ profitability by lowering money-market rates, potentially hampering credit supply to companies and households and reducing banks’ incentive to lend to other financial institutions.

“If inflation stays low, as seems likely, and the threat of inflation expectations becoming unanchored to the downside increases significantly, then all the tools in the box can come into play,” said Ken Wattret, chief euro-area economist at BNP Paribas SA in London. “But knowing the way the ECB operates and how long it has taken to try and get support for a refi rate cut, doing the big stuff could take some time.”

Well, I believe QE has already been implemented by the ECB accepting trash sovereign debt as marketable collateral, but that's a discussion for another day. Just listen to the Financial Nostradamus dude when he warns what happens when a larger, admitted QE program is instituted. For one, you'd probably eliminate that inflation problem... replacing it with...

Poland will take over and cancel government bonds held by its privately managed pension funds, stopping short of fully “nationalizing” the system as it seeks to curb public debt, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

However, some member states have not ruled out the possibility that insured deposits, i.e. deposits under €100,000, would be forced to bear losses in the event of a bank collapse even though these deposits would be likely to be protected by the deposit guarantee scheme.

As stated earlier, this ain't AAA coverage!

This year Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the group of 17 euro zone finance ministers, said that losses on bondholders and depositors could form part of future bank bailouts as euro zone officials seek to move the burden of bailouts away from taxpayers – as was the case in the Irish bailout – and on to private investors.

The European Commission argues that this switch from so-called “bailouts” to “bail-ins” would result in an allocation of losses that would not be worse than the losses that shareholders and creditors would have suffered in regular insolvency proceedings that apply to other private companies.

Ahem, that non-sense only works on the uneducated and/or the unassuming. The major difference is that creditors that would be subject to regular dissolution proceedings AND that are unsecured, would demand considerably higher rates of return. A borderline solvent bank whose officers AND regulators admit publicly is in need of additional capital infusions after receiving three thus far, and 96% losses in its publicly traded equity, would have to borrow money at 18%, not 2% - and that's being generous. See the bank deposit rate calculator below.

While the inclusion of large savers in future bank bailouts is now widely accepted, significant differences still remain between member states.

While the new rules governing bank resolution were first intended to come into place in 2018, since the Cypriot bailout there have been calls from senior EU figures such as European Central Bank president Mario Draghi and EU economics affairs commissioner Olli Rehn to introduce the new regime as early as 2015.

The Irish presidency of the European Council is hoping to reach a common position by the end of next month.

The little app below calculates what return you should expect to receive to take on the risk of a potential 40% haircut. The second tab offers what recent Cyprus bank rates were. Do you see a disparity???

Side note:

The video below was the result of a collaborative effort to bring Mr.Middleton to Ireland through a crowdfunded campaign. While the effort fell through, we have recycled some of the material to ascertain interest in his visiting Ireland on an independent basis. If you're Irish, from Ireland or simply find this financial/ethical malarkey disagreeable and would be interested in seeing Reggie Middleton visit Ireland to disseminate his research, create new resarch, hold town hall style discussions on how to "occupy the banks" or simply have a good, old-fashioned breaking of the bread, let us know of your willingness to contribute to a crowdfunded project on Indiegogo. If there is enough interest to make this happen, we will create a project to fund Reggie's trip and create saleable research. Let Reggie know directly by contacting him via email: reggie at boombustblog dot com

Almost a year ago, as the euro crisis raged, Europe’s leaders boldly pledged a union to break the dangerous link between indebted governments and ailing banking systems, where the troubles of one threatened to pull down the other. Yet the agreement that seems likely to emerge from a summit later this month will be one that does little to weaken this vicious link. If anything it may increase risks to stability instead of reducing them.

Almost everyone involved agrees that in theory a banking union ought to have three legs. The first is a single supervisor to write common rules and to enforce them uniformly. Next are the powers to “resolve” failed banks, which is a polite term for deciding who takes a hit; these powers also require a pot of money (or at least a promise to pay) to clean up the mess left by bust lenders and to inject capital into those that can get back on their feet. The third leg is a credible euro-wide guarantee on deposits to reassure savers that a euro in an Italian or Spanish bank is just as safe as one in a German or Dutch bank. National insurance schemes offer scant reassurance to savers when sovereigns are wobbly and insured deposits make up a big chunk of annual GDP (see chart).

Let's face it, in order for the few to thrive, a majority have to suffer in apathy, ignorance and the resultant bliss before the storm! Is that the way it is? Is that the way it has to be? Well, apparently that's the way it's going down in Europe. I have issued very, very explicit warnings on the ex-sovereign entity known as Portugal. Despite such. and despite my track record on such matters (see Who is Reggie Middleton?), the financial media, sell side and practically the rest of the world hailed an "all's clear" as absolutely nothing has gotten better yet several things have gotten worse.

UPDATE: 5Y now +126bps (biggest jump in 19 months - snce the record highs) and rest of Europe is catching their systemic risk flu

Bond Spreads...

Of course reasons are given for this spike that come from very smart people who do very impressive things. The fact du jour is that this spike was guaranteed to happen, and it was guaranteed to happen this year. That's right! Guaranteed, and all paying BoomBustBlog subscribers knew this to be a fact TWO and a half (that's 2.5 for the number nerds amongst us) years ago! Did I (or my subscribers) know that the Portuguese government would come close to blowing up this year? NO.

So, exactly how did we know? Well, let's start by acknowledging today's date. July 12, 2013. Next we dig into the BoomBustBlog archives, going back to...

The inevitable truth of the matter is that several European states WILL default, and default they will. If Germany, or any other economy that still has its druthers to it decides to stand in front of said occurrence, it will likely be dragged down as well. The Germans apparently realize this. See this excerpt from our discussion on the topic regarding Ireland's prospects for default:

Do you have any reason as to why they are choosing 2013 as a deadline ? Seems like an arbitrary date.

Well, Nick, just follow the money or the lack thereof…

So, what debt raising and servicing soveriegn nation that was unsustainable in 2010 was lent even more debt to become even more unsustainable. The chickens come home to roost in 2013, post IMF/EU/Bilateral state le veraged into Ireland loan/Pension fund raiding bailout! What Angela in Germany was alluding to was what all in the know, well… know, and that is that Ireland is already in default and those defaults have been purposely pushed out until 2013. Angela simply (and wisely from a local political perspective, although unwisely from a global geopolitical standpoint) admitted/suggested was that the defaults will be pre-packaged and managed ahead of time. The EU politbureau insists that politics rule the day, and no prepackaged structure be in place for the Irish defaults to be. This means the potential foe even more carnage through the pipelines of uncertainty!

This is the carnage that would occur if the same restructuring were to be applied to Portugal today.

Yes, it will be nasty. That 35% decline in cash flows will be levered at least 10x, for that is how much of the investors in these bonds purchased them. A 35% drop is nasty enough, 35% x 10 starts to hurt the piggy bank! As a matter of fact, no matter which way you look at it, Portugal is destined to default/restructure. Its just a matter of time, and that time will probably not extend past 2013. Here are a plethora of scenarios to choose from...

This is Portugal's path as of today.

Even if we add in EU/IMF emergency funding, the inevitability of restructuring is not altered. As a matter of fact, the scenario gets worse because the debt is piled on.

These posts focus on an explicit and stern warning that AIB is drastically undercapitalized and quite possibly the purveyor of a massive fraud on the Irish people, US investors and regulators and German taxpayers.

Second, we anticipated fiscal problems in the Irish state as far back as 2010 when everyone swore that they were the poster child of austerity. Subscribers, see Ireland public finances projections. Professional and institutional subscribers should email me for a link to a live spreadsheet that can allow you to run your own calculations on toasted Ireland's finances really are.

AIB has inccurred significant debt from which the underlying collateral has significantly diminished. This caused the need for even more capital and more borrowing. It also apparently caused it to change the wording in its annual statements regarding repos, potentially allowing it to conceal financial aid in the form of even more debt .from another party. After all, when you borrow something it's a loan right, as in additional debt??? Below, you see a loophole for near unlimited borrowing, and not a peep will show up in the financial reporting!

Of course, theres more...AIB Charge DiscrepencyAIB Charge Discrepency

Definitions: Charge - The document evidencing mortgagesecurity required by Crown Law (law derived from English law). A Frixed Charge refers to a defined set of assets and is usually registered. A Floating Charge refers to other assets which change from time to time (ie. cash, inventory, etc.), which become a Fixed Charge after a default.

The charge document below, which was registered with Ireland’s Company Registration Office (CRO), states that the charge is in respect of the Company’s participation in Target 2-Ireland. It is also in respect of ‘all present and future liabilities whatsoever’ of Allied Irish Bank Plc. (to the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland or to the European Central Bank). The charge is over ‘Eligible Securities’.

Target2 is a European Union payment system. I believe it is misleading to indicate in the annual accounts that Target 2 has a bearing on the security that has been given.

In the short particulars section of the charge; the property charged to the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority is over ‘all rights, title, interest and benefit, present and future, of AIB Plc. in and to each of the Eligible Securities from time to time, where ‘ Eligible Securities’ means, at any time securities of such a class or description as may from time to time be designated by the ECB as ‘Eligible for Sale and /or Purchase, as the case may be.’ (Refer to actual CRO charge document below)

AIB Charge Discrepency1 copyAIB Charge Discrepency1 copy

image004image004image009 copyimage009 copy

In the Irish version of the Bank’s annual Accounts (2008) and the SEC 20F (page 223 - 2) it states that the charge was placed in favour of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland over all of AIB’S ‘right, title, interest and benefit present and future in and to certain segregated securities.’

Using the description ‘certain segregated securities’ is completely different to the description all ‘eligible securities.’

It appears that AIB is stating that they have given ‘certain segregated securities’ as security to the ECB whereas the ECB actually decides which securities will be designated as ‘eligible’. The charge is in favor of the Central Bank and is over ‘all present and future liabilities whatsoever’ of AIB. This charge is a floating charge over repo agreements, aka Eligible Securities - securities that the graphic above demonstrates can go on ad nauseum and way beyond the entities prudent ability to repay, yet not appear on the balance sheet or in its regulatory reporting!!!. These securities have been purchased by the ECB through the repo agreements.

Thus, it appears as if this floating charge granted to the ECB is over assets that the ECB already owned. The floating charge was given to the ECB by AIB for emergency funding (emergency liquidity). Do you see a circular argument here? A potential Ponzi even???!!!! I warned my paying subscribers three years ago, Beware of the Potential Irish Ponzi Scheme!

For those who don't get it, AIB is essentially asset/equity broke. All properties considered as marketable/acceptable collateral (in other words anything of real, tangible value) jas already been pledged to the ECB. EVERYTHING!!! To the prudent depositor, this is all that needs to be said, but there's more, much more, Irish men and women, prepare to be CYPRUS'D!!!

If you believe that the information above actually identifies a gross misrepresentation of fact, omission or outright fraud, simply contact the SEC and let them know that Reggie Middleton suggested they look into it. You can actually use this form to convey my message.

Remember, extreme wealth concentrates, so you don't have to... Coming from a "Cyprus'd" bank near you!